Todd and Brooke Shambo found an uncommon father-daughter bond in go-kart racing, a hair-raising pursuit that affords them the opportunity to scratch their competitive itch alongside fellow adrenaline junkies.
Todd and Brooke Shambo like living on the edge.
“I’ve always been an adrenaline-rush junkie,” said Todd, a 61-year-old Miami native who works as a prominent State Farm Insurance representative in Conyers. “I used to water ski for a living before becoming a State Farm agent. I raced motocross before that. I got hurt real bad, and that’s when my work for State Farm came into play.”
Shambo opened his agency in 1995 and has achieved the highest levels of State Farm recognition, from President’s Club, the Chairman Circle and Ambassador Club to Crystal Excellence. He serves clients from Conyers, Covington, Lithonia, Loganville, Social Circle and points in between, and while he finds great satisfaction in building a business that caters to thousands of people’s insurance needs across metro Atlanta, it does not scratch the adrenaline itch. However, go-kart racing does, and Shambo remembers exactly where he was when he was introduced to it.
“I was listening to the radio and an advertisement came on about go-kart racing at the Atlanta Motorsports Park in Dawsonville,” he said, “and I said, ‘That’s it.’ I told my wife, ‘I’m buying a go-kart and this is what I’m going to do. Next thing you know, I’m racing in Morrisville, North Carolina, where the competition up there is really, really fierce, and I’m loving it.”
Shambo has grown into quite the force on the track. He won the 2016–17 karting series in Morrisville and finished fourth in the United States Pro Kart Series, which features racers from all across the country. It was the kind of “hobby” that became infectious enough that it began to catch on throughout the Shambo household. While Todd was getting deep into racing, his volleyball-playing daughters, Brooke and Summer, began to take notice—particularly Brooke. She started with a “mini swift” kart at around age 10 and raced for about a year before she quit to get into dance and then volleyball. She flirted with the possibility of playing volleyball in college but eventually opted for cosmetology school, and soon, she gave into the temptation to get back on the track. Her interest was rekindled after she watched “Gran Turismo,” a 2023 film based on the video game racing simulator of the same name.
“It’s really nerve racking, but once I get on the track and I kind of zone out everything around me, I just feel like all of the nerves go away.”
Brooke Shambo
“I went with my family to watch that movie, and that just brought the spark back and really inspired me to get back into the kart,” Brooke said. “Once I got back in, I guess I’m an adrenaline junkie, too. I get that from my dad, and I ended up falling back in love with it.”
Brooke started competing again in August 2023 by racing full series in Morrisville and Dawsonville. It did not take long for her to return to form. Todd recalls a race in Morrisville where she did not perform as well as she had hoped in qualifying. She finished 12th out of 13 and thought it was the prelude to a really bad day on the track.
“She was like, ‘I messed up. I’m done,’” Todd said. “I told her, ‘No, just huddle down and focus.’ And when she did, she drove from the 12th position to sixth, then from sixth to fourth. She was making passes that I wouldn’t even attempt. She impressed me to no end. She wasn’t scared at all. Brooke is just fearless.”
That may be how it appears on the surface, but inwardly, she acknowledges she is a bundle of nerves before a race.
“I really get a lot of anxiety before going out on the track,” Brooke said. “I sit on the grid and think of somewhere cool that I’ve been or a fun memory or something—anything—to calm me down. It’s really nerve-racking, but once I get on the track and I kind of zone out everything around me, I just feel like all of the nerves go away. All of my things in life, all distractions, just go away, and the competition makes me better. I want to run in front.”
Todd loves to watch her compete, perhaps even more than he enjoys racing himself.
“She’s really good,” he said. “She’s so fearless. She blows away these other drivers that have been doing it for years. If she would’ve stuck with it, she could’ve had the chance to do some really cool things. She’s a natural.”
Perhaps she could have found her way into the heart of the auto racing world. Both Brooke and Todd watch NASCAR, IndyCar and Formula 1, and it is not uncommon to see some of the standouts in the “big boy” auto racing world matriculate back to the go-kart track, where, for many of them, it all began. Take Will Power, for example. Power, a two-time IndyCar Series champion and one of the most successful IndyCar drivers the sport has seen, has been to the karting track in Dawsonville a few times. Brooke even got the chance to drive with him. “He came to Brooke and asked her to go out and practice with him,” Todd said. “That was pretty cool.” Even when Brooke backed off the track for a while, Todd stuck with it. Kart racing, motocross and water skiing are his football, baseball and basketball, and he has no intentions of walking away anytime soon.
“You know, at 61, by far, I’m the old guy out there doing it,” he said, “but I work out five days a week to stay in shape. I don’t plan on stopping until I can’t do it anymore. I was never good at those more traditional sports, but these are the kinds of things that I just really love to do.”
To be sure, Todd did not choose a cheap hobby. Some of the pro kart racing series offer a winning purse of up to $5,000 per race. That may sound nice until you factor in the costs of entry fees, let alone the fact that purchasing a kart can run you anywhere between $10,000 to $12,000.
“It’s not like motocross, where you’ve got guys like Ricky Carmichael making a living off of it,” Todd said. “With the fees it costs to get into a kart race, tires, pit fees and those kinds of things, if you win top prize, you’ll basically just be getting your money back.”
That means the passion for kart racing looms much larger than any financial payoff. In fact, Todd, a born-again Christian, sees his ability to get on the track as a reason to give thanks to God.
“I’ve always prayed that God would bless my business,” he said. “I’d say, ‘Lord, bless my business where I can help others and show others how I can give.’ He’s blessed my business 10-fold, which has allowed us to be able to do this and afford it. I can spend anywhere between $5,000 and $6,000 on a race, but it’s worth it; and if it weren’t for God blessing my agency, well… I just give Him the glory for it all.”
Click here to read more stories by Gabriel Stovall.
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